


Ghost in the Machine

by Kkharrin



Series: Lullabies [1]
Category: CATWS - Fandom, Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, captain america: the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Death, F/M, False Memories, Flashbacks, Gaslighting, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Post CATWS, Psychosis, Surgery, Torture, graphic mention of SI in chapter two, remembering, self injury, soul searching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kkharrin/pseuds/Kkharrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a Soviet numbers station that began broadcasting a few years after victory in Europe. Its activity is sporadic, usually only a single day, a maximum of five, maybe once or twice a decade. 32557. Drei, zwei, fünf, fünf, sieben. Drei, zwei, fünf, fünf, sieben. Global intelligence agencies noted with interest that its broadcasts correlated with the assassinations of the Soviet ghost know as the Winter Soldier. It has been suggested that the station broadcasts a continuous signal until the asset has been retrieved.</p><p> </p><p>It has been 5 months since Hydra fell.</p><p> </p><p>The station has been broadcasting for 157 days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mantras

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a series of drabbles I wrote whilst studying for my finals. However, with the freedom of the end of the exams it quickly became apparent that it was getting far too big for a stand alone. So, I decided to go the whole hog and break it into chapters and pad it out into something huge. This first chapter is kind of slow paced but we will go places my friends, we will go places. How do I know? Because I've kind of already written it, kind of...
> 
> Post CATWS, Bucky obviously isn't in a great place, as such this fic is going to contain graphic and sometimes quite brutal examination of his mental state. I will update the tags with each chapter and write a note for triggers but, obviously, I'm sorry if anything upsets you, my ask box is open if you want to talk!
> 
> You can find me [here](http://lordbelatiel.tumblr.com) where you'll also find drabbles, art and general tomfoolery.
> 
> I would be super glad for critique if you have anything to say!

The locals agreed that they’d first seen him during early summer. Initially, there had been some concern amongst the older members of the community. He looked strange, he _was_ strange from what they knew from their brief encounters. A tall, broad shouldered man with greasy dark hair and a gaze that passed straight through them, appearing in town once every couple of weeks. The gossips noted that he had been seen in other towns in the vicinity, never speaking, always watching. The pastor had walked past him on his way to the chapel, coming to the conclusion that he was one of the veterans that so often sought the solitude of Maine, not here to do any harm, just seeking silence and the calm of the wilderness. The pastor was correct; the man was a veteran, just not of any modern war.

 

 ---

 

He perched on the edge of the stool, foot braced against a table leg. The man’s face… _Steve_ , he corrected himself, was pinned on the far wall. Pictures of him were not hard to find. This was a publicity photo, complete with a wide toothy grin, his eyes strangely shy, all scrunched up with the intensity of his smile. He had found himself comparing faces when he stood in front of the mirror, but all that looked back at him a rapidly thinning countenance, pale between messy dark hair, eyes filled with a perpetual look of horror.

 

‘Bucky.’ He had whispered the name to his reflection, watching the curve of his lips as they spoke, as if hoping that seeing his alternate-self name him would make it seem more real.

 

 _Bucky_.

 

The way the man had looked at him. He had known him; he had to have known him.

 

 _Who is he? Do I know him?_ He had asked. _No, of course not, he is your mission,_ they had replied.

 

He had accepted it, why would he have thought that they would lie to him? That room, grey, with the metal chair for repairs and reconfiguration, that...that was all he had known.

 

He let out a small tight noise of pain, flinching at the memory of reconfiguration, of his jaw rictused tight within the mask, of the electricity surging through his head. He had relived that memory many times over the last few weeks. He wasn’t sure whether it was the same event or multiple occasions.

 

Reset, kill, reset…

 

His breathing steadily slowed, settling, a tingling in his hand reminding him of how hard his metal fingers were clenched on their flesh and blood counterparts. _Calm, Bucky, calm._

Even as he thought it, he let out a small noise of disgust. Nothing of this seemed real to him. He felt it would make more sense if he found he had been manufactured in a jar. The thought of life before this… the idea of normality seemed preposterous, it made his existence even more unbearable.

 

Standing, he paced across the room, his entire visual field filled with the contents of his wall. The wall that was all he had of his ‘life’. He ran the fingers of his metal hand across a picture of a brownstone apartment block. The birth certificate of ‘James Buchanan Barnes’ stated this nondescript building as his home, where he had lived his entire life…past life, he corrected. The picture was faded with age, browning. A water stain in the top left hand corner threatening to eradicate the New York skyline entirely. It was such a narrow, cramped looking building; he struggled to imagine what it would be like to exist, to be raised, in such an environment.

 

He lingered there a little too long. His eyes shifting from focus, fixating beyond the plane of the photograph. Here, his chest barely rising with each inhalation, his heart beat palapable as a throbbing through his shoulders, he began to drift…

 

He could see trees slowly swaying in the breeze; pausing, leaves flaring, before the movement subsided and they lapsed back against their momentum. It was the sort of summer evening where the warmth of the day was still rising from the soil, lending a hazy glow to the fall of the sun. Vast open fields of green, stretching for as far as he could see, silent after the days planting.

 

He didn’t know how many months he had already spent in this hospital. It certainly was not long since he had been allowed to venture onto the patio and feel the sun on his skin. Not long enough, he thought, to acknowledge the emptiness where his arm should have been. He should only focus on things that he could fix. The broken legs where the ache was deadening to a deep itch, the hand that no longer shook when he wrote, a head that now waited until the day had ended before it began to ache.

 

‘Bucky?’

 

It was a voice that elicited an automatic smile.

 

Steve pulled up a chair beside him, dragging it across the paving slabs with an ungodly screech.

 

‘You came back for me, Steve?’

 

‘Of course, Bucky.’ The voice was strange, not entirely that of Steve, as if he were a sound bite that had been pieced together. Bucky found himself turning slowly, achingly slowly, as if not sure whether he wanted to know at all.

 

Steve’s face was bloody, his lip split, bruising radiating down the side of his cheek.

 

‘I’m not going home, am I?’ Bucky asked, his voice uncharacteristically small.

 

‘What do you mean?’ Steve asked, but his face didn’t move natural, as if he were a bad special effect, a memory pieced together from too few fragments to ever be believable.

 

‘This isn’t real is it, Steve? This isn’t what really happened?’

 

As he said it, he could feel the scene shift, degrade.

 

The trees disintegrated to rough smears, Steve’s face followed suit, distorting, pixelating and finally disappearing. The sensation in his legs began to fade away, the dull ache in his chest tightening and sharpening until he was breathing shards of glass. His world tipped, his ears filled with static, eyes filming over with red. It was cold, so cold…

 

This was real; this was the reality, a reality so hideous that his own mind had tried to shield him from it.

 

That…that hunk of meat, that bloody smear on the snow, that had been his arm. He knew with a sickening certainty that, when he tried to breath, the sharp pains in his side were partially the shards of his own radius and ulna digging deeper into his flesh.

 

He felt no panic. He felt nothing at all. He knew that he shouldn’t be able to see his body like this. Some part of him was contorted beyond repair. He should be dead, he was definitely dying.

 

Time lapsed behind his eyes and when his heavy lids opened once more it was to shadows in the snow. The sensation of movement was strange. He felt little at all, as if his entire body was a dislocated joint that you watched slip, deadened by shock.

 

They left his arm in the snow…

 

He must have blacked out as they started to move him, but even in the darkness he could hear the murmur of unfamiliar voices. He wanted to speak, to ask for Steve, but his lips were out of his control, swollen and bloodied against one another, not yet fit for speaking.

 

Then, with the sound of rotor blades scissoring the air, the darkness truly swallowed him.

‘Where am I?’ His voice was raw, wet with tears, muffled by a mask over his lower face. All he heard in reply were voices, snapping at him in a language he didn’t speak, and the whirring of machines, clicking over steadily.

 

‘Where am I?’ He moaned, his voice breaking as his throat dried, coughing, coughing, and crying harder as the movement jarred his broken body. It was difficult to talk, difficult to breathe; air was being forced into his mouth at regular intervals, automated.

 

‘Home, soldier.’ A hand drew the mask away from his face and he gasped, drawing in deep like a bellows. He could not see the man’s face, cast, as it was, in sharp shadow by the stark overhead lighting.

 

‘Home? This isn’t home…where is Steve, where is he?’ The panic in his voice sickened him. He was in danger and all he could focus on was Steve’s comfort…

 

‘Hush soldier, you’ve been through an ordeal, but you’re going to be ok?’ There was a lick of an accent to that voice, he wasn’t conscious enough to really process it, but it wasn’t American.

 

‘No, no, where’s Steve, what have you done with him?’ He shuddered, the sudden tension in his jaw and neck drawing on muscles that really shouldn’t have been moved.

 

‘Who is Steve, soldier?’ The confusion in the man’s voice seemed genuine. Even now, Bucky doubted himself.

 

‘My friend…’ He felt the edges of his mouth tug, a keen of pain ripping free from between his lips.

 

‘You have no friends, son. You have only ever been a soldier.’

 

The words incited a rage that threatened to consume him. He struggled against the bed, trying to rise, but all he could raise was his head and even that only weakly. Pain radiated up his neck, but beyond that he was only aware of a lack of sensation.

 

‘Hush now, soldier, you will be fine. You are being reconfigured, this pain is fleeting.’

 

‘I’m not ‘soldier’, my name is James Buchanan Barnes, I’m Bucky, I’m Bucky!’ He snarled, ashamed to feel tears standing in his eyes, rolling over to run down the edges of his face.

 

‘It is normal to be confused in times of trauma, soldier, maybe you should sleep.’ The voice cajoled, cupping the side of his face in a way that made him want to bite and snap like an animal.

 

‘I don’t need to sleep, I’m not confused. Where’s Steve, where’s Steve…’ The strength seeped from his voice, it sounded wet to his ears, filled with tears.

 

‘I think it’s time you slept now, soldier.’ The man whispered and, against his will, darkness took him.

He felt sensation surge back into his body, stuttering along his limbs. His lungs were gasping, floundering open. There was metal on his face, digging into his skin and, after a strange moment, he realized that they were his own fingers, clenched tight over his eyes.

 

Where am I? 

 

He’d felt that fear far too often, repeating over and over, a stuck record grinding into his existence.

 

Sergeant. 32557. Barnes…

 

What he wanted more than anything, the moment he fantasized about so deeply, was to be able to let go. He wanted to stop being afraid; he wanted to step out in front of his friend and see Steve’s eyes soften. He wanted to be able to take those steps, one foot in front of the other and to not even have to ask. Steve would just hug him, hold him tight, cradle his head against his shoulder in a way that no-one had done for over seventy years. He would feel the movement of Steve’s back under his hand, barely moving. Steve would swallow him up, envelop him, hold him as his legs collapsed beneath him. There wouldn’t be tears, not then, he would be too overwhelmed for tears. How could you feel so numb with feeling; so much sensation that it caused your nervous system to stutter and fail.

 

Where would you even go from there?

 

What would happen when he was finally able to let go? Surely it was only the need to survive that was keeping him standing. If you took that away…what then?

 

He clenched his fist, rutting his nails into his palm till he felt the wet warmth of his blood. Sensation. _Good_ , he had felt himself begin to drift again.

 

At the edge of his mind, a constant throughout his existence, had been a voice gibbering. A scared child sobbing, whispering mantras over and over as if that would keep the devil at bay. He knew it would only take a moment, a moment where his barriers dropped, and the voice would overwhelm him. Decades of memories scrambled, suddenly all available, no longer forcibly held at arms length. If he was forced to meet that…he felt his diaphragm contract violently and curled over his knees, his hands pressed tight to his face. He could feel the moisture of his breath beading against the cold metal, running down his face like tears.

 

His chest was tight, a whistling chest, the panic so great that he felt as if he had punctured both lungs. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t, he had to forget, he had to…

 

_Steve._

 

A ragged cry erupted from him. Raw and tight like dead skin being sloughed from a burn.

 

He couldn’t, he couldn’t forget Steve, not now.

 

Still in that trembling state of distress he stood, staggering across the room to the far wall where there was a collage made with shaking fingers. He had pinned upon it every picture of the two of them that he could find, fingermarks shining across them where he had clutched them tight to his chest. He couldn’t bear to look at his face. Could he even call that his face? That smile, as broad as Steve’s, eyes shining with pride at his friend, their embraces violent with affection.

 

He felt the sob catch in his throat. He would never be that man again…

 

He was a killer, a prisoner, a shell. Every emotion was a shard digging deeper into his heart. Feeling again would destroy him.

 

He felt his lips move without any real accord, mumbling across one another, drawing tight with a sob before his legs gave way entirely. He didn’t feel his knees hit the floor, only his hands, clenched tight on the edge of table, preventing him from dashing his head open against the wood.

 

He felt the blockage at the top of his chest ease, releasing a heaving sob.

 

The only sound was the rain, pounding on the roof above. His chest heaved and gasped but it was silent, as if his emotions had all tangled and gnarled inside, leaving his lungs empty.

 

In silence he watched his tears drop heavily to the floor.


	2. Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky takes that post-credits trip to the Smithsonian and realises how much he wants to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, time for some trigger warnings, there is one torture mention in regards to the Facility. More importantly there's a fairly graphic description of self injury and psychosis, so if you don't feel up to that right now then it might be best to save it until later. Or, you can skip it, if you want to avoid it then stop reading for four paragraphs after 'He'd taken a steadying breath, slowly moving across.' It's near the end but I don't want to hurt anybody and that bit could be really triggering if you're not feeling well.

The problem with nightmares is that they leave you subsiding on snatches of respite. By the time he had collapsed into the rickety single bed yesterday at noon he had been awake for over 60 hours. He couldn’t even remember most of those hours, he’d been drifting or fixating. It wasn’t often that he couldn’t be found at one of those extremes nowadays.

 

He’d slept for close to a full day, though maybe slept was the wrong word. He hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter when he’d lurched to the bed and promptly collapsed. Now he’d woken with a tongue metallic from dehydration, eyes that were sticky and red raw.

 

It had been several months since he had dragged Steve from the water. Several months of subsisting on the bare minimum. Some days he would shower almost every hour, scrubbing at his skin desperately until it was smarting and raw and others he would just sit, eyes somewhere else, almost as if he was taking root in the sofa.

 

He had left the waterside at a run, pelting down the shore line, ducking into shaded boulevards to avoid the attack helicopters overhead. There had been chaos, people screaming and running, too deep in shock even to notice him standing in their midst in head to toe leather, strapped up with weapons, his prosthesis shining clinically in the sunlight.

 

To say he’d had a plan at that point would have been a lie. He’d darted between the cars, gridlocked for blocks as the public gaped up at the sky above. Sprinting, wincing at every step, his body only just realizing that within the last twenty minutes he had plummeted several hundred feet from the sky, he ran.

 

It must have been miles, miles and miles. It certainly had felt like that. Finally he’d panicked and hijacked a car before he driving north, still dripping wet and stinking of lake water.

 

He had driven north for three days. Nowhere in particular, just north.

 

Each day a different car, each night a different remote hunter’s cabin, listening to the radio and the hysterical broadcastings from Washington as people realized their safety net had been compromised.

 

His whole body had hurt; his joints ached, the muscles of his shoulder had been in spasm, his right arm throbbing deep in the bone, broken, only through the effects of the serum was he functional. His mind had hurt the most…

 

Just…just, split second glances of unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar places, different ages…

 

Many times he’d had to stop the car as a sliver of memory threatened to drive him from the road. He’d sat with his head against the steering wheel, his whole body shaking, unable to breathe, letting the ragged gasps of his past subside.

 

In the short of it, he had done his best to disappear.

 

He was surviving only due to the money in his ops account, which he had expected to wither and fail after the fall of Hydra but somehow it was still being topped up. Maybe when digging around the HYDRA files someone had found the account.

 

It was an oddly comforting thought. Someone wanted him alive.

 

He had withdrawn the money in installments at random ATMs around the Boston area. Each amount had related to a letter of the alphabet. ‘Don’t look for me’ had been the encoded message.

 

Thankfulness was not an emotion he had experienced for…well, he wasn’t entirely certain how long it had been, too long. It had triggered strange sensations in him, desperation to stop running, to hide but no longer flee.

 

He had bought a rickety hunting cabin in cash from a man who looked like he wouldn’t remember a face and seemed glad to have the money in his hands. It was large enough, a patchwork of different repairs; sheets of glass fastened over holes in the wooden roof serving as unintentional skylights, a crank wheel generator in a side shed for energy. There was even an old fireplace in the kitchen with a pipe chimney; across from it an old stove running on camping gas with a kettle that was older than he was, charred black and heavy enough to kill a man.

 

In another side shed he’d found a box of old shotguns, damaged and abandoned. He’d seen worse. Within a few days his clever fingers had bastardized the broken machines into one, taking it apart piece by piece and oiling it into a functional weapon, weighing each individual piece in his hands as if to recognize it. By the third day he could have performed the maintenance with his eyes closed.

 

The old cabin became his safe house, from here he ventured nervously into the world with his collar up, hat pulled firmly down over his eyes. He spent as little time amongst the public as possible, slipping into a clothes shop in one town, a corner shop in another, a pharmacy in the next. He wanted to reduce the likelihood of anyone remembering a face, especially one as memorable as his own. People couldn’t see eyes as empty as his and forget them.

 

The first few weeks after his initial flight had been painful despite his fast healing capabilities. He’d knocked back the pills and subsisted with gritted teeth, using his right arm for as little as possible, focusing with a fevered energy upon anything but his past. Despite his best intentions the memories had continued to bombard him. Sometimes only a familiar smell, the fleeting sensation that there ought to have been someone else in the room. Other times, huge sudden cavalcades of memories, a full flashback that left him shaking on the floor, nursing his head in his hands.

 

Stubbornly, he had tried to ignore what he was learning, passing off the brief whispers of his other life as unnecessary, pointless, trying to dump them before they could take hold. Why bother, he questioned, they will only take them away from you again…

 

It was perhaps the final realization that no one was going to try and take his memories from him anymore, that changed his mind. Like a switch being flicked somewhere behind his eyes he decided to remember. In fact, he was not going to do it passively; he was going to find his past.

 

His days took on a new routine. In the mornings, when the light was new and fresh, he would wake and walk down to the stream, splashing water over his face, running his fingers through his hair to remove the tangles of sleep. He would dress in the clothes he had bought with cash, strangely affected by the softness of the plaid shirts he bought, so very different from the strait jacket like leather of his uniform. Everything became a matter of comfort, loose jeans, a big waxed jacket with a shearling lining, thick socks and worn-in trekking boots of black leather.

 

His research mostly consisted of driving to a suitably distant library and searching public records. His birth certificate, miraculously not classified; dig a little deeper, his draft and enlistment records; a proxy server and some questionably acquired hacking knowledge, the details of his time in the Howling Commandos and his death certificate. He had printed it all off quite innocently on the library printers and fled, wondering how long it would take for what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D to descend on the sleepy hamlet.

 

This had been the first of the dangerous information gathering ‘missions’. He had taken to pinning the information to the walls of his cabin, covering the open windows with thick cloth to keep prying eyes away.

 

As he had begun to dig deeper the flashbacks had worsened, almost crippling him, waking him in the middle of the night with his chest heaving with fear. It was not just terrifying memories that left him so alarmed, it was seeing people and places that he knew he ought to know, but having no knowledge beyond that, like ghosts in an empty house. Some days he would have grand leaps in knowledge, such as when he had realized who Steve was; remembering whole shreds of conversation, that skinny little kid who’d tried to enlist five times under various pseudonyms. With others it would be more ambiguous; a view of an alleyway, a street corner that he knew was significant. Stepping out into a road thinking he was in Brooklyn only to be jarred into the moment by a car horn, the bonnet bare inches from his side, the sharp smell of burning rubber as the tires had skidded on the road.

 

It was with trepidation that he decided upon the next ‘mission’.

 

There had been a rack of leaflets in the corner shop, advertising various different locations: civil war reenactments, roadside attractions, even activities as far flung as Washington. One in particular had caught his eye…namely because his face was on it. He had grabbed it, stuffing into the side pocket of his jacket and bought his food with a nervous stutter running through his whole body. He had run through the rain back to his car, strategically parked down a dark side street, and slammed shut the door, stabbing at the button to turn off the overhead light. If he was going to read this, he really didn’t need anyone else seeing him do so.

 

He wasn’t the only person on the cover. His picture was to the left of Steve’s, looking every inch the hero with his shield on his arm, his expression that pertinent combination of seriousness and empathy that Bucky had always admired. Even when he was small man he’d had a big heart. A heart that had saved Bucky.

 

His gaze slipped to himself. He saw a very different man to Steve. He was dressed in the navy uniform he’d worn as a Howling Commando. His collar was turned up almost nonchalantly, but he knew it was to hide the scars where the needles had been thrust into his skin. This picture had been taken after the facility, you could see it in his face, you could see it in his eyes. There was a tightness to his jaw, the curl of his lips cruel rather than playful. Bucky knew he had never been a man without his issues but this was different, this wasn’t a troubled man but a traumatized one.

 

He wasn’t entirely sure why this made him want to visit the exhibit, but it did. He thought maybe they would have information about his formative years that wasn’t in his military file, brighter, more vivid details than the deadpan cataloging of the army records.

 

So he had driven through the night to reach Washington, wearing his bulkiest jacket, having let his facial hair grow so as to further obscure his face, his cap pulled down tight and close to his eyes. He had only intended to visit for an hour and then leave but that hadn’t really gone to plan. The first problem had been the metal detectors at the front entrance; they would screw with his anonymity. Instead, he’d had to crawl in via a ventilation shaft, dropping down into a storeroom and shiftily wandering the back corridors until he’d found the public area, melding in amongst the crowd as if he had always been there.

 

It had been uncomfortable, to say the least, moving between the crowds of people. He still couldn’t reconcile that the man who could kill with his bare hands flinched under the barest touch, his heart rate climbing, lungs freezing over as a young child had walked into his arm, certain that they would somehow know it was metal, somehow extrapolate from the diffuse media paper trail that he was _that_ man with the metal arm.

 

Thankfully the exhibit was dark; uplit carefully to exaggerate the majestic grandeur of Captain America. There was a display of Uniforms that the public had gathered around. The one at the centre was Steve’s, it was genuinely Steve’s, you could see the holes where bullets had skidded past him, a well used Uniform. His Uniform was to the right, it obviously wasn’t the original, the original had been burned, well, what little was left of it, caked with his blood, studded by the shattered fragments of his arm bones.  In a cabinet to the right was that awful piece of tat he’d been wearing in the facility, he almost felt anger surge behind his eyes; a raw, unfamiliar sensation but it quickly subsided, leaving him shaking. He’d moved across to it, noticing the blood stains around the collar, the blackened edges where it had singed in the facility fire, the strange discolourations from where they had used chemical irritants as a weapon of torture. He watched little children stand on tip-toes to peer inside. It seemed strange, to present a symbol of such terror and degradation and yet not explain what it mean to them. Parents reading the text absently, never even thinking to contextualize the information to their children.

 

He’d taken a steadying breath, slowly moving across to a free-standing cabinet that apparently contained his dress Uniform. He knew it wasn’t really his, or, if so, they’d done a damn fine job of cleaning it up. It was one of his more vivid memories, the first night in London after his rescue, all dolled up for the cameras. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, war hero, survivor. They’d drunk whiskey on tap, laughing and smiling tightly with Steve, staggering under the weight of his memories. He’d lost Steve at one point, staring around him and seeing not a single familiar face. A sudden darkness had come over him. He had tried to talk but every word he spoke was nonsense and he knew it. His chest had started to heave, his heart fluttering like a trapped bird, the wings beating against his ribs. Even his mind voice was gibbering. He’d had run to the toilet, not quite making it before vomiting all over the front of his jacket, staggering into the wall, shaking violently. Just about making it into the toilet cubicle before he had drawn his pocket knife and slashed it deeply across the back of his arm, the side of his arm, the soft underbelly, howling like a wounded animal. God, it had stung, the pain had made him vomit again, over his trousers, over his shoes, his breathing taut, blood running down the side of his arm, pooling in the elbow of his jacket.

 

Steve had pounded on the door, he wasn’t sure how he had found him. He’d pounded and he’d pounded, threatening to call for a doctor, his voice ragged with tears. Eventually, Bucky had relented, the darkness subsiding just enough for this decision to make sense, and shifted to the back of the cubicle, opening the lock with stuttering fingers. Bucky didn’t want to think too hard about the expression on Steve’s face when he’d seen his arm, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen that look, a look of self loathing at not being able to get to Bucky before he had done something like this. He’d sat on the floor beside him, not even noticing the vomit, and cupped the side of Bucky’s drooping head in his hand, examining his eyes, a thick runnel of tears glistening down the side of his face.

 

Steve’s silver tongue had come in handy that evening. Hauling a semi conscious Bucky to his feet, staggering from the toilet to beg for a doctor, his friend had slipped and fallen through a glass table…of course, he’d had to break one for this to work. Obviously it had been a bad idea to for the top brass to schedule such an evening the night of their return; they just didn’t realize how bad an idea.

 

Steve hadn’t let him out of his sight after that. Bucky, are you eating enough? Are you sure you’re up to going out this evening? You would tell me if you start to feel that way again? He’d wanted to curl up in a ball and die; he couldn’t deal with these memories and Steve’s smothering love. His friend’s hands, tight on his shoulders, well, it took him a couple of seconds to realize that they weren’t the iron fist grip of his captors. Even if it had been, he’d learnt not to move, not to resist. Men turned to animals in war and you didn’t want to see what happened when you taunted a lion, or at least a man who viewed himself as a lion.

 

The exhibition brought up such strange memories that he found himself sleeping in his car so he could return the next day and then the next and the next. He’d looked down at his left arm in the darkness, as if hoping to see the corded scars that would make this seem more real, but all he could see was smooth metal.

 

By the end of the fourth day he had the exhibit memorized, even the strange glowing holograph of his own face, staring petulantly at the camera. Each day he had told himself that it would be the last; that he had to stop baiting luck, that the next day armed S.H.I.E.L.D operatives would storm the building and take him by force. On the fourth day this fear overwhelmed the strange new sense of safety and security he had found in the Smithsonian.

 

The next morning he had arrived back at his cabin, collapsing into his bed. If he closed his eyes he could imagine that his pillow was the warmth of Steve’s chest against his head, cradling him to sleep as he had done after the facility, closer to a brother than a friend.

 


	3. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve visits the Smithsonian, not sure what to expect. But, it's Natasha who gets more of a surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I found myself quite interested in what Steve and Nat were thinking, this is the first 'non-Bucky' chapter. I'm going to intersperse these with Bucky's chapters…and maybe even some flashbacks, because who doesn't love 1940's Cap.

The Security Guard was small, wizened, and probably younger than Steve.

 

‘Excuse me. Sir, do you remember seeing a man, about this tall, dark haired, probably wearing a hat, hanging around there a lot?’ Steve blurted, stabbing his finger in the direction of the Howling Commandos exhibit, cursing internally at his inelegance.

 

The Guard stared up at him, his moustache twitching with his lips as he saw Steve’s face under the brim of his baseball cap.

 

‘Oh…’ It was a reflex exhalation of air, the man’s hand twitched at his side, as if ready to rise into a salute.

 

‘At ease.’ Natasha moved alongside him, a reassuring hand landing in the small of Steve’s back.

 

‘Have you seen a man like that?’ She directed to the security guard who did another double take, this time very close to dipping into a bow.

 

‘Now that you mention it, I _do_ remember a man.’ The Guard frowned, wetting his lips under the whiskers of his moustache.  ‘Came sporadically over a week or so, big jacket, looked kind of tired and sad…’ He trailed off, his eyes slipping to the display behind Steve, a soft sheen of sweat beginning to glisten on the top of his forehead. ‘Oh…’

 

‘Do you remember when?’ Steve felt his arms extend and just about managed to stop himself from grabbing the old man’s shoulders in his fervor.

 

‘Oh, sorry, I can’t pin down the exact time.’ He winced apologetically. ‘You can go through the CCTV if it’s really important to you…’ The Old man smiled briefly, before the worried cast returned to his eyes. ‘It is important, isn’t it…Captain?’

 

Steve paused, not quite sure how to deal with the earnest glint in the man’s eyes. It took him back to a time where he was a symbol of hope and optimism, not a jaded man, old in his heart, who couldn’t even look after his friends.

 

‘I…yes, sir. It’s very important.’ He replied finally, feeling the pressure of Nat’s hand a little firmer on his back.

 

The guard shuffled through long corridors to a metal door that clunked open with a brisk turn of his key. Nat immediately got to work. She seemed to know instinctively how the hard drives were classified, reading the boxes with a head tilted to the side so her red hair fell like a curtain against her shoulder. Steve assured the Guard that he was glad for his help; he was even able to smile a tense little smile in reply to the wide toothy grin of the old man. The smile did not last long after he left…

 

‘Are you ok with this?’ Nat asked gently, swiveling on the office chair to look him right in the eye.

 

Steve shrugged; his eyes were already dull on the archive feed that Nat had brought. A dark exhibit; it was perfectly possible to avoid the light if you really wanted to…and Bucky would want to. So many people, mingling in family groups, small children dragging on the hands of their parents, bouncing up and down to try and get a better look at the Howling Commandos exhibit. Even from the distance of the CCTV camera he could recognize every display case. He could probably recite every plaque back to you...

 

They zoomed through the first set of recordings, finding no one that even vaguely fit the profile. Nat had her face balanced on her fist, though balanced was probably too genteel a word for the way she was mashing up her cheek in frustration.

 

‘Drive 2.’ She sighed, obviously not expecting a reply, zooming through the tape at x16. Third drive, fourth drive…it seemed impossible, he could almost see the hour hand start to spin.

 

Steve kneaded his eyes, scrubbed at the inner corners and looked up again.

 

‘Wait.’ He yelped, sitting forward in his chair, his hand outstretched to the screen as if that was enough to pause the tape.

 

‘Eh?’ Nat paused the tape, squinting at the footage.

 

‘Bottom left, um, wearing the base ball cap.’ Steve pointed.

 

‘Really? How can you tell from that?’ Nat frowned, her nose scrunching up in disbelief.

 

‘Just trust me, play on a little, you’ll see, it’s him.’

 

‘Ok, if you say so.’ Nat tipped her head at him skeptically, pressing play so the video rolled on in real time.

 

The figure in the bottom left moved forwards slowly. As the crowd surged around them they seemed to tense up and grow smaller, hunkering down into their jacket.

 

Steve felt himself move closer to the screen, as if he could somehow make the figure turn around across time. The man took another two steps forward, circling around one of the free standing display cabinets, stepping briefly into the beam of an uplighter.

 

‘Pause, pause!’ Steve exclaimed. Nat swatted his hand away impatiently as he made a clumsy grab for the mouse.

 

‘Can you zoom in?” He asked; his voice oddly strangled.

 

‘Uhuh.’ She tapped at a couple of keys absently, the image focusing in on the face of the figure. The image on the screen lagged behind her keystrokes, and as the computer whined it was the only sound in the room.

 

‘Steve, is that…’ Natasha’s voice trailed off. In the corner of her eye she had seen Steve bury his face in his hands. She reached out a hand awkwardly, resting it on his shoulder.

 

‘It is, isn’t it?’ She whispered, more to herself than to Steve. The face on the screen was blurred, hazy, but the intensity of that gaze…

 

She had not recognized the Winter Soldier, but she knew this man.


	4. What do they say about Patience?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which she finally writes gratuitous fluff. 
> 
> Are you glad?

**Brooklyn, 1942**

 

Steve angrily scrubbed at the wayward line with his eraser. He couldn’t concentrate. It was late, Bucky had told him he would be home by half past seven and now it was nine o’clock. The pot meal he’d prepared was bubbling on the stove, if Bucky didn’t hurry up the potatoes would be positively soggy.

 

 _Asshole_ , he thought to himself, coughing to loosen his chest as it began to tighten.

 

Impulsively he added another line to the sketch and swore under his breath. It looked like shit; everything he had tried to draw in the last hour had looked like shit. Frustrated, he slammed his sketchbook down on the table, getting to his feet with a groan and walking to the window.

 

It was cold in this side of the room, a definite draft seeping in around the edge of the glass. He crossed his arms across his thin chest and sighed. The view from the apartment window wasn’t much to write home about but it was familiar, which had always felt reassuring. They were surrounded by other brownstone tenements; windows glowing behind thin drapes, steam rising in heavy furls from a vent in Franchetti’s diner across the street, the clanking and clattering of cats amongst the dumpsters in the alley. He could see Mr Esposito standing on the fire escape below, the hot ember of his cigarette visible against the darkness. Steve was glad the window was shut, that smoke could probably have given him an asthma attack the way he was feeling.

 

He was ready to just take the pot off the boil and go to sleep when the door opened with a quiet click behind him.

 

‘You asshole…’ Steve yelled, turning on his heel, but then he fell silent.

 

Bucky was making big eyes at him, maybe in an attempt to defuse his anger. But Steve couldn’t have been angry even if he wanted to.

 

‘God, Bucky, I hope you left the other guy looking worse.’ Steve hissed through his teeth, crossing to take Bucky’s coat, which was tossed awkwardly over his shoulders.

 

‘Is that possible?’ Bucky tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a groan.

 

It seemed as if his whole face was bruising, rising like dough, puffier on the right than the left. His left arm was in a sling and from the way he was nursing his shoulder it would seem that it was the source of his problems.

 

‘Asshole, fucking asshole.’ Steve scowled. ‘Couldn’t you keep yourself out of trouble for one night?’

 

‘Steve, shut up.’ Bucky smiled tiredly. ‘Let me sit down before you start moralizing.’

 

‘Moralizing, what’s the supposed to mean?’ Steve growled, looking up at Bucky with a foul expression on his face.

 

‘Get out of my fucking way is what it means right now, punk.’ Bucky staggered past him into the flat, dropping with a groan onto the sofa. He sniffed, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Chicken? Nice…and potatoes, there are always potatoes.’

 

‘Do you really want my entire conversation with you this evening to consist of the word ‘asshole’?’ Steve countered as he put the kettle on the backburner.

 

‘Conversation’s overrated.’ Was the muffled reply from Bucky as he proceeded to bury his face in a pillow.

 

Steve shifted the pot from the front burner with a huff of exertion, there was a least three or four days worth of broth in this pot, it was fucking heavy. As he lifted the lid, out poured a plume of steam and he breathed deeply, steam inhalation was supposed to be good for him, and this steam smelt awesome.

 

‘You gonna to be ok with this?’ Steve asked, gesturing vaguely at Bucky’s jaw.

 

‘Leave it to cool, now come over here.’ Bucky slapped the sofa beside him, lapsing back so his head tipped over the back.

 

Steve sniffed, he didn’t take orders from anyone, least of all Bucky, but he wanted to be on the sofa beside him. Swallowing his pride he walked across stiffly, perching cross legged next to him on the worn cushions.

 

‘I wasn’t intending to get into a fight this evening, Steve.’ Bucky’s voice was quiet, his head still tipped back on the top of the sofa.

 

‘Oh, I see how it is, usually you do intend to get into-.’ Steve snapped playfully.

 

‘Steve, shush for now, will you?’ There was a heaviness in Bucky’s voice that made him pause.

 

‘Sure, Bucky.’

 

‘I didn’t intend to, but I had to, I had a duty to fight this evening.’ The fingers of Bucky’s uninjured hand were steepled on the bridge of his nose.

 

Steve stayed silent, there was something about the pause that suggested it didn’t need to be filled.

 

‘I was coming home in good time, Steve, believe me, I didn’t want to be late out this evening.’ Bucky sighed. ‘I was walking past the entrance of the alley by Silvio’s, and…and I just heard this dame yelling and screaming.’

 

‘So, I went down there and there was this huge guy, he had no business with a tiny gal like that, pawing all over her, had her pinned against the wall. I yelled at him, told him to leave her alone but he just laughed. Yeah, you can imagine how the rest went down…’

 

Steve felt any residual anger in him seep away. Bucky looked so tired and worn in that instant, but he was proud of him. Steve was always proud of Bucky, proud that he continued existing. He wanted to lean in and…

 

Bucky turned his head to meet Steve’s lips. His face must have been tender, his lips certainly felt pulpy under Steve’s.

 

‘Asshole, you’re making my face hurt.’ Bucky’s lips moved against his, he could feel the tension of the smile in his face.

 

‘Asshole, you’re making me want to kiss you.’ Steve grinned against Bucky’s mouth, their faces so close it was impossible to focus on anything other than their proximity.

 

‘You’re making me want to do more than kiss you.’ Was the purr of a reply, Bucky’s free hand curling tight around Steve’s back to draw him closer against the side of his chest.

 

‘I’m starting to agree; conversation is overrated.’ Steve smiled, his hand slipping across Bucky’s inner thigh, eliciting a shudder.

 

‘Then stop fucking talking.’ Bucky’s hand had run up his spine to cup the back of his head, strong fingers pressed into his neck.

 

‘Don’t you want to hear me recite the alphabet, Bucky?” Steve smiled wolfishly, their faces still bare centimeters apart. Bucky’s lips were wobbling, his eyes glittering mischievously, as if he were trying to hold in a laugh.

 

‘In French. I wanna hear you recite the alphabet in French.’ Bucky whispered, his lips pressing urgent kisses down the side of Steve’s neck.

 

‘I’m sure that can be arranged, Monsieur.’


	5. Schwarma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I really like writing Nat's POV...

‘Steve?’ Nat gasped, the bloody knife dropping from her fingers.

 

Steve grimaced, pressing a hand to his cheek dazedly.

 

‘Steve, were you concentrating at all?” She berated, feeling her hand reach out reflexively to touch the gash along his cheekbone.

 

‘I was…I thought I was.’ He sighed, moving to pinch the bridge of his nose, the pads of his fingers leaving a trail of blood across his face.

 

‘Asshole.’ She scowled, forcibly taking his arm and depositing him in a chair at the edge of the training space. He still looked dazed; she supposed that a punch to the face with a knife would do that to a person.

 

‘You know, you could have told me you were zoning out before we decided to do knife work.’ She thought that if she quirked her eyebrow any higher it would probably dissapear into her hairline.

 

‘I’m tired, Nat…’ He sighed and she made a noncommittal noise.

 

‘You’re not eating or sleeping properly, you let me land a cut that I should never in my wildest of dreams have struck. You’re pining, Steve.’ She swabbed the wound with an alcohol wipe and Steve’s eyes scrunched up, as if he was chewing on a lemon.

 

‘Not really a shock, is it?’ Steve pursed his lips together and Natasha found herself scowling at him.

 

‘Just sit still and maybe I can save your pretty face.’ She hissed, drawing a set of butterfly sutures from the med kit.

 

 _You’re not the only one who’s confused and suffering, Steve_. In silence she drew the edges of the wound together, applying the sutures with practiced fingers. Steve had his eyes closed, dark shadows visible under the lower lid. Nat frowned, for super soldier Steve to have bags under his eyes, he must not be sleeping _at all_.

 

The hunt for Bucky was slow and arduous, and only worsened by the need to go through the Hydra data alongside their search. Matters had not been improved by the reassembly of the Avengers Initiative after GCHQ had received  data on strange electrical anomalies around the globe. Maybe just a fundamentalist threat; she laughed internally, ‘only a fundamentalist threat’? What life was she living? There was not a huge amount of information, but the electromagnetic pulses had been strong enough to knock out the comms and navigation equipment on the aircraft carrier that had been three miles from the epicenter of the blast. The use of such a pulse in a crowded urban environment would endanger lives, not just mains but also back up generators would be fried. It wasn’t the first time something like this had been tried but the interceptor who reported it had expressly requested that the information be passed to global intelligence agencies. There was something off about those readings, she had asserted. Natasha agreed, five such pulses in the last 2 months…the world had seen enough strange shit in the last couple of years to know that something was not quite right here.

 

‘Finished.’ She pushed up off her knees, admiring her handiwork with her arms crossed.

 

‘My beauty intact?’ He half smiled, looking up at her with those puppy dog eyes he had so perfected, and then wincing, because scrunching up his face was a really bad idea right now.

 

‘Debatable.’ She replied, watching his face. Damn it, he didn’t look well. Sort of worn, his eyes dulled, his face drawn; he’d lost weight on his cheeks and it left him looking sunken and tired.

 

‘Let’s go get schwarma.’ She stated finally. He looked like he needed some feeding.

 

‘Ah, I can’t really be bothered to go out, Nat.’ He tipped his head to the side, apologetically, and she felt that familiar scowl curl her lips.

 

‘Ok then, we’ll order take out.’

 

‘Can you even get takeout Schwarma?’ Steve scrumpled his nose at her.

 

‘Steve…’ _Are you serious?_ ‘Steve, come on, this is America.’

 

‘I’m still getting used to that…’ He mumbled under his breath.

 

‘No, no you’re not; you’ve lived in this time for over two years. You know more about tech than most teenagers.’ She grabbed his shoulder to get his attention. ‘What’s happened is that you’ve had a shock; the past has changed, not your present. Your moping isn’t going to help you find Bucky, is it?”

 

He looked up at her, expression flitting between disbelief and outright anger before he settled, now seeming more embarrassed than anything.

 

‘First you cut me up and then you break my heart. God, Nat, are you having a bad day?’

 

‘No, I’ve just had enough of your pining. It’s downright selfish when everyone’s working so hard to help you. Isn’t your superpower supposed to be your upstanding and selfless nature or something?’

 

‘Hah.’ Steve snorted. ‘Maybe, but don’t hold your hopes up, I mean my name _is_ Captain _America_.’

 

‘Shut up Steve, I’m seriously considering making those scars symmetrical.’

 


	6. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So with Civil War coming up and making this seriously out-of-canon, I felt I might as well finish it ;)

It was cold, and damp…a rigid damp, he didn’t even know what that meant but it felt applicable right now. 

Scatter, scatter, god, he wasn’t even sure he could breathe right now, there was…there was muslin tight across his mouth. He could hear the water dripping, thudding onto the sodden muslin, forcing beads of water down into his mouth, his face fixed into place by metal bracing, eyes upwards, neck at full extension, the water flooding down from the muslin, swallowing, constantly swallowing, he was going to drown…

‘Are you ready to tell us the location of the asset?’ A voice asked coolly. He shook his head, spluttering as the water surged into his mouth. I don’t know where he is; I don’t know where he is. 

‘I think good sir, you will find that I am not as easily dispatched as old Ultron.’ The voice laughed, a high, cruel sound. 

A hand moved into his view, holding a tumbler of water, swilling the contents round and round in his grip. 

‘I repeat, are you ready to tell us the location of our asset?’

He squirmed, trying to signal ‘no’ with every inch of his body. He didn’t know where their asset was; if he had he would have been there, definitely not here. 

‘Are you very certain Mr Rogers?’ The voice stated coldly. ‘In that case…’

The tumbler tipped in the figures hand and Steve thought he would surely die.


	7. Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky re-enters the modern world...

He found that the longer he spent in the deep woods the less a man he felt. Strangely, along with it he felt less of a killer. 

Here, in the dappled light of the autumn forest, he killed to survive, snaring rabbits, stalking deer, but only that which he required to eat. There was respect behind these kills, skinning, gutting, rhythmically cleaning, it was like a ritual. Somewhat different to feel of a man’s windpipe folding beneath your fingers, leaving his body to lie lifeless on the roadside, his death meaningless. 

The most discomforting part of these memories returning was that they didn’t feel like the others. He would have preferred to have been left shaking and shuddering on the floor by the remembrance but instead the images seemed to move infront of his eyes with little or no reaction. Mechanical, the remembering was mechanical. 

There had been a couple in a car. Positioned on a bluff above he had shot out a tire and watched the vehicle career off the road, rolling over and over down the embankment. He had been close behind, wandering down to the smouldering wreckage, peering through the shattered windows, a bloody blond head thrown back against the broken glass, a still chest, dead. Moving to the other side he had seen a dark haired man, breath still somehow laboring, blood pouring down the side of his neck, soon to die anyway. He had grabbed the back of his head with his metal hand and slammed it into the steering wheel, feeling the life loosen under his grip, the whole body slackening. And then he had walked away…

The memory itself brought little emotional effect, it seemed to have been overwritten by apathy, as if he were hearing a dying man’s screams but buried under white noise. It was impossible to tell which emotions were from the memory itself and which were his own new…emotions. New emotions. He felt as if he may never have felt emotions before, it was strange, and yet the snippets of his past showed that he had felt…deeply. 

He had reached a point where he realised he needed to move forwards. 

The memories continued to appear, sudden apparitions in his day, strange, unexpected thoughts and feelings. Chest ripping nightmares, searing pain through his body and head, conflicting information that made him want to break down and cry. But he also felt more certain, certain that this man, Steve, was who he said he was. He had known it subliminally when he’d saved him, but this was different, this was putting a whole disjointed catalogue of memories to the face…it was strange but also strangely comforting. 

It was with this mindset that he decided he was going to find Steve. Steve was not going to find him, he was going to find Steve. He needed that tiny semblance of control. 

It was a damp, overcast morning when he gathered together the few personal belongings he had accumulated into a rucksack, sheepishly hiding the makeshift shotgun under a pile of blankets on his bed. He felt strangely sad as he took down the papers from his wall, gathering them in a tatty old box file he’d found in someone’s bin and stowing them into the rucksack and under the back seat. 

The forest was dew ridden, water dripping down heavily from the mossy roof onto his cap as he locked the door behind him. He didn’t think he had it left in him to sentimental but, driving along that rough old track, with the familiar conifers overhead it was almost as if he was driving away from his home. 

He drove to the nearest town, out of habit parking up down a side alley, and walked slowly to the barbers. The man behind the desk was old, a proper mustachio, his hair slicked back with scented oil, the backs of his hands covered in wiry dark hair. How do you want it? He’d asked with a smile but Bucky had been taken aback, he hadn’t really thought about it. Short, he ventured, shortish…

Don’t worry, the man had said, we’ll work it out. 

Bucky’s mouth was dry, unpleasantly so, unused to talking, he’d barely spoken a word in the last few months. There must have been something in his face that was pitiable because that man was so unreasonably kind to him. He made him tea, spiced with cardamom, gave him cinnamon biscuits and a creamy yoghurt drink. Bucky could have cried, the urge only got worse as the barber cut away the tendrils of hair from around his face. Careful, skillful hands removing his facial hair in several swift movements…

The face underneath was thin; cheekbones standing out starkly, dark hollows in place of eye sockets but it was his face, Bucky’s face…

He stared at himself, it was the only thing he could really do. 

‘When was the last time you saw yourself, son?’ The man asked gently and it took all of Bucky’s strength to not cry, not now, he would allow himself to cry when he found Steve, but not yet. 

‘I don’t know…’ He replied truthfully, his voice filled with a hitch. 

He left the barber’s shaking. The man had refused payment, asking only for a promise that Bucky would try to get his life back on track. 

Swallowing, he set himself a course to the local shopping mall, picking out a handful of fresh plaid shirts, socks, two sets of black jeans, a soft hoodie with a shearling lining and a pair of gloves. As an afterthought he bought a tub of hair gel, a comb and a bottle of musky cologne, Bucky would have done the same, right?

With his purchases in hand he had returned to his car and driven south.


	8. Immersion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search reverses...

He had parked up in a shopping mall parking lot on the edge of Washington, changing into a new shirt and combing his hair in the bathroom of the complex and shoving the rest of his purchases into his rucksack. It was brisk December weather, not quite snowing but with the chill in the air and he wasn’t the only one with the hood of his jacket up. 

He didn’t entirely know what he was doing. Sure, he’d checked the metro plan and bus schedule on the internet as part of planning but it’s not like the last time he was on ops in Washington that he’d taken the subway. He’d probably have got some pretty odd looks with his sniper rifle case strapped to his back. He felt kind of sick; he’d had a mission that had started somewhat similar to this…a fairly cold day, November if he remembered correctly, south of here, definitely not Washington. There had been a man and his wife; a failed first shot, a shot that had skimmed his spine, a third and the man’s head had disintegrated. He would have taken a fourth shot, to confirm death, but the woman had thrown herself across her husband’s body, sobbing, hands cradling the remains of his skull, and there had already been enough death that day. A botched job, a single shot should have been enough. The shocks that evening had been the worst he had ever felt…

He ended up taking a bus and changing to a metro line…somewhere. He knew where Steve’s apartment was, well, he ought to, he’d shot a man there, but the specifics of it were a little beyond him right now. His lips were pressed so tightly together it kind of hurt, his metal arm creaking in the cold because he didn’t really know how to maintain it. Beyond that, he was nervous…yes, the highly trained, soviet assassin was nervous…

Sitting on public transport he felt certain that people were staring at him. He sat with his arm curled around his rucksack, metal arm shoved up tight against the side of the bus, terrified that someone would somehow realize how cold it was through his hoody or something else equally improbably. 

‘Muummy.’ A little girl, she must have been about six, dark haired and grave, was tugging on her mother’s sleeve as she took a seat opposite him on the metro. ‘Muuuuummy.’ 

‘What is it Shan? Mummy’s busy.’ The mother was in her late 20’s, struggling with her phone, dark hair hurriedly tied back, nurses’ blues peeking out of the top of her bag. 

‘But, Muuu-um. Doesn’t that man look like the man in the exe-hibition?’ She looked straight at Bucky, speared him with dark green eyes. What do they say? ‘Straight out of the mouths of children?’

‘Exhibition, Shan, not exe-hibition.’ The mother replied absently, running a hand along the back of her child’s hair. 

‘Mister.’ The little girl tried to get his attention, well, tried wasn’t the right thing to say, she definitely had his attention. ‘Mister, are you a so-oldier? You look like a so-oldier.’ Her eyes were twinkling, despite his apprehension he couldn’t help but be charmed, she was so blunt, the way she spoke was playful, toying with words, still curious. If she didn’t become an actress he’d be shocked. 

‘Shan, leave the poor man alone-.’ The mother began to speak, raising her eyes from her phone only to stop, a sudden exhalation leaving her lips. ‘Christ almighty, you’re right Shan.’ She shook her head, as if trying to shake an apparition from in front of her eyes. 

‘I’m sorry.’ She apologized. ‘You really are a dead ringer for Bucky Barnes.’ She laughed nervously. 

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to unsettle you.’ He replied slowly, his jangling nerves settling a little as he realized that she didn’t think he actually was Sergeant Barnes. 

‘Oh, there’s no need to apologise, it’s just Shannon’s been going on about Sergeant Barnes all week. We went to the exhibition with my parents last week.’ 

‘He’s a hero.’ The little girl smiled a broad, broad smile, cutting across her mother. 

‘Captain America was more of a hero I think.’ Bucky replied quietly. 

‘Oh no, Bucky gave his life for Captain America. He was a hee-er-ro with a capital H.’ Shannon answered seriously. Bucky smiled wanly but he felt his gaze slip. 

‘Shh, now Shan, you’re bothering the man.’ The mother’s hand was running reflexively through the little girl’s hair. Bucky saw a hitch in her breathing that hadn’t been there before, the phone slipping from her fingers into the depths of the bag. 

‘Are you ok?’ He asked, it was strange to ask that simple question, at least for him it was. He hadn’t really considered the welfare of others for a long time. She looked up from her lap, as if truly seeing him for the first time. 

‘Oh, me?’ She asked quietly. ‘Oh, I’m ok, I…Shan’s dad, my…he died in Afghanistan.’ 

‘He was a Hero.’ Shannon replied emphatically. ‘Just like Bucky.’ 

‘I’m sure he was.’ Bucky smiled tightly, trying to be comforting, but all he could think of was the woman crying, sobbing, pieces of her husband’s skull peppered in her hair. Bucky may have been a hero, but he was not…

‘You know?’ He began. ‘You should look after your mum, she’s brave and fierce, she saves lives, she loves you. She’s a hero too.’ 

The little girl quietened, her face growing pensive. She looked up at her mum as if she’d never seen her before, not truly. The mother laughed, that shy self-deprecating laugh she seemed to favour but she turned to little Shannon, her hands continuing to slowly stroke her dark hair. 

He stood, recognizing the next stop as the one he needed to get off at. The mother looked up at him, he saw in her that lion-like fierceness, Steve’s fierceness. 

‘You have a good day.’ She smiled. 

‘Have a good life.’ He returned, disappearing from view in a mill of commuters. He felt guilt rise in his throat, should he have stayed another stop, should he have said something else? Did ‘have a good life’ sound dismissive of her grief? He felt his tongue circle his lips nervously. These emotions, these were Bucky’s; these weren’t his, were they?

An image caught the edge of his vision and he crossed to the entrance of the station where lay a rack of newspapers. On the front was a grainy photo of God-knows-where, but that was Steve, Steve bloodied on the front cover of the newspaper. Ultron, who the fuck was Ultron? Was Steve ok? Was-.

‘Are you going to buy that?’ An irritated voice asked. 

‘Where is this? What happened? When was this?’ Bucky blurted. 

‘I’m not a fucking search engine, do you want to buy the paper or fucking not?’ The man behind the counter snarled and Bucky found a little part of him just on the edge of snapping. It was a drawing sensation, like the tide tugs the sand away from under your feet. Darkness descended over his vision like a caul and it took all of his focus to not reach out and crush the man’s throat with his metal fingers. Dropping the paper he turned and walked away. 

‘Fucking asshole, people think they can walk in here and read my fucking papers and not pay a cent, un-fucking-believable.’ 

Bucky wanted to clamp his hands over the sides of his head. Suddenly everything was so loud, the vibrations of the cars in the road were as palpable as his own heartbeat, his chest felt as if someone had sucked the air from them with a bellows. He felt the danger point, that horrible edging drift where he could just tumble and be in the darkness again. Thank god he didn’t have a knife, thank god he didn’t have a knife. 

He walked with his head down, each step driving his breathing into a normal rhythm again. He wasn’t going to think about, he wasn’t going to think about…he looked up and took a hissing breath. How was he here already? 

Trembling, he took the steps to the door two at a time. He’d already worked out how to hack the door console, he had a protocol in place from when he’d been here on the mission and, with a couple of keystrokes the door opened beneath his touch. He couldn’t remember ascending the stairs but he was up them, this was, this was where…

Steve’s door swung on its hinges, surging and sighing in the breeze. The lock was charred, detonated by a small charge. Cold ran through his whole body. Not the cold of fear but of need, chill the soul, clear the mind. He took the softest of movements towards the door, nudging it open with his shoulder, grappling the broken off door handle in his palm as an improvised weapon. He could see in the white washed wall beyond how the charge had driven shrapnel deep into the mdf, in some places driving it completely through. He nudged the door shut behind him, driving another piece of lock between what was left of the handle and the doorframe so that no one could move in behind him. 

He took another soft step, keeping his back to the wall, eyes scanning the opening at the end of the corridor. He could hear the clatter of the blinds as they rose and subsided against the window in the same chill breeze. Along the laminate floor he could see a streak of blood, shards of glass from a blown in window, a ragged edge of curtain where someone had obviously ripped it to form a makeshift bandage. The wind was whistling, in one of the windows nearby must have been a bullet hole; it had that cadence, of air being forced through a narrow, smooth edged gap. 

With a foot he pushed open the only side door on his stretch of corridor, keeping his face angled to both the lounge beyond and the room, his gaze scanning the small toilet until he was certain that no one was hiding inside. Clear. He moved slowly towards the end of the corridor, watching the movement of the light beams across the floor, watching for movement unexplainable by the blinds or curtains. Keeping his back to the wall of the corridor, he scanned to his left, certain that there was no possible way that someone could be hiding there, only turning his back that way to give his undivided attention to the next challenge. 

He took slow circling steps, his back to the checked wall, moving around to give him an unimpeded view of the kitchen. It quickly became apparent that this was where the scuffle had occurred. Drawers were ripped from units, rivets of metal bent from the hob, the microwave a crumpled heap under the window. A knife was embedded up to the hilt in the central wall, a pizza cutter just below it. A streak of soot ran from the oven to the central island, some kind of improvised flame thrower? A chopping board lay in pieces, a circular hole through the middle testament to its attempted use as a shield, but plastic was truly useless against a bullet. Blood congealed in tacky pools on the floor, streaked, fingers dragged across the tiles, as if someone had been wrestled to the ground…or tied up on the ground…

Fuck this. 

Cold anger surged through Bucky, a hideous white heat that he felt like an anvil across his chest. 

In the last few months he had decided that he wasn’t going to allow anyone to fuck with him anymore. And you certainly didn’t get to fuck with Steve.


	9. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Natasha...

There had been a Hydra safe house in Manhattan, a metal vault hidden in an upper east side penthouse. It had legitimately been someone’s home, two little blond haired children raised by a nanny, an valium doped mother, a philandering white supremacist father…looking back at it now it just made him feel ill, what kind of sick fuck would bring a killer like him into the midst of his family, even if he was hidden in a vault with walls over a metre thick. To think, he had been lying there, electroshocked into silence, surgeons digging around in the stump of his arm, working on updating the neural interface, sometimes screaming and sobbing, whilst in the next room were two small children being read a bed time story. It was enough to almost make him black out as he sat at the back of a greyhound bound for New York. If what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D hadn’t dealt with that monster, he would be putting a bullet between his eyes the moment after he found Steve. 

He could feel himself reverting, his mind recoiling in on itself despite his best efforts. Decisions were becoming increasingly black and white, his emotions were dulled or forced to extremes, frustration lead to feelings of violence or pitiably rage. He had found himself pawing at his face, nails digging into the skin of his throat, in a state of agitation that he could see was making those around him increasingly agitated. Settle, Bucky, settle…

The moment that they arrived in New York he bolted into the night, wanting to be as far away as possible from those who had seen his face. A shadow of stubble was forming on his chin; he had to resist the urge to keep brushing it, a nervous action, a ritualized, mechanical action. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to enter this safe house…he considered it likely to be abandoned in the wake of the scandal…

It was a white stone high rise near Central Park, a home of the posh and privileged. An art noveau front gate, honey golden marble lobby, a doorman until 9pm....as he turned the corner he saw the bouquets, piles of bouquets, a mountain of flowers. He felt like his stomach had been jerked up in place of his lungs. Above the flowers was a piece of cardboard, on it tacked a smiling picture of the mother, her two children perched at either side of her. Angry sentiments circled round it, anti gun petitions, just genuine deep sadness. 

He must have had a small ‘break’ as the next moment he was standing on the threshold of the penthouse; police tape bundled up in his hands, stepping into the entrance hall over a deep brown blood stain. His cheeks were wet, tight, as if he had cried but not for a while. How long had he been standing there, teetering on the threshold?

He followed the bloodstain, streaking in the form of limbs across the marble floor, drawn in the kitchen. Here a shot had been fired, a smooth circular hole in the oven door, streaked around the edges with hair and brain. 

Get out of here, get the fuck out of here Bucky, just get what you came for. He felt his knees become rather soft and somehow managed to make his way to the master bedroom where the door was concealed. It was under the carpet, a small hatch that drew into the darkness down a set of stairs before abruptly rising. His torture occurred above the master bed, he wondered whether that monster had thought about his screams when he was fucking his wife. Monster, torturer, child killer…

This time he couldn’t stop himself vomiting, it made a soft horrible noise, pattering against the bloody edge of the bedding. A retch like that really deserved a more distressing noise. 

He ripped back the carpet with his bare hand, the sharp edges of the carpet tacks rubbing his fingers bloody. Hooking his nails under the edge of the hatch he flipped it upwards, snapping it clean from its hinges, sending it flying across the room to land crookedly on the bed. He took the steep stairs into the darkness, stumbling along the unlit passage until it ascended back upwards, into the red room. 

The door was still open, standing ajar, the dull red light diffusing down the steps. Bucky slowed, lightening his step, slowly, slowly…

The room was empty, the central gurney overturned, scalpels still brown with blood scattered across the concrete floor. The lock boxes that had been full of weapons were swinging open. His gun, the carbon fibre custom rifle they’d had imported from Europe, was lying on the floor in pieces. Not in pieces as in he could have put it back together but in pieces-pieces, utterly destroyed. 

The air left his lungs in one swift exhalation, what the fuck was he supposed to do now? He entered the room, running from lock box to lock box, hopeful, ever hopeful that one of them would contain a bloody pistol at least. Nothing, fucking nothing, he…

Turned swiftly on his heel, eyes wide and feral. 

‘Bucky…easy, I’m not here to hurt you.’ The woman stated, the gun pointed directly at his head seemed to say otherwise. He recognized her, she’d been there that day when Steve had called him Bucky and absolutely fucked his conditioning. Red hair falling down around her shoulders, clear blue eyes that didn’t seem to be lying, a face that…there were other memories of that face, old memories, strange, warped memories. It seemed as if someone had really tried their best to wipe those…she had a face that looked like it too had been under the ice. 

‘Put down the gun.’ He replied quietly. 

‘I…I can’t.’ She paused, the support hand on the gun wavering slightly. 

‘Please, Natalia.’ He breathed, knowing somehow that it was the right thing to say. 

‘How?’ Her eyes widen perceptibly, her whole body position changing to one of alarm but then easing. ‘You know me.’ It wasn’t a question. He nodded. 

The anger seemed to leave him in one surge, he dropped to his knees, sitting back on his heels and sighing. 

‘Who’s got him?’ He asked as Natalia circled the table, leaning against its upturned edge. ‘Hydra.’ He answered his own question, the shard of plastic he’d been holding tight against his palm slipping to the concrete. Natalia, Nat, nodded, tipping her head to the side, examining him. 

‘I knew you were coming.’ She smiled. ‘A retired operative said they’d cut your hair, up in Maine.’ 

‘He was ops?’ Bucky couldn’t help but snort, how had he not noticed that? Embarrassing. 

‘Yeah, you idjiit.’ She laughed, her expression tightening as she looked at the red stained walls around her. 

‘Did he kill his kids?’ Bucky asked finally, his mind not full comprehending what his lips were saying. Nat only nodded, ducking her head once, her red hair bobbing around her face. 

‘I’m gonna-.’ Bucky could feel the snarl entering his face, ripping into his cheeks, the white heat surging through his body. 

‘He’s dead, Bucky.’ Nat whispered, her hand suddenly on his face. ‘I killed him.’ 

He looked up at her, the sensation of her fingers on his face so strange. He found his metal fingers lying on top of hers, as if holding them there. He had a sudden memory of leaving the red room, exiting into the master bedroom, slipping into the kitchen. She had been there, the wife, eyes wide as if actually surprised to see him. He had been planning to escape, tired, sad, it hadn’t taken much for her to convince him to sit, poured him an orange juice. Everything she had said had directly contradicted with what he had known, with what he had told himself. It was not long before he was surrounded by Hydra agents, dragged back screaming to the red room, reconfigured, reconfigured, reconfigured. She hadn’t been a good person; she had known exactly what sort of person her husband was…the only ones to be pitied in this whole situation were those poor children. 

“I need to trust you, Bucky. I, I…need to try and understand you.’ Nat whispered. 

‘How, how can you do that? I don’t even understand myself.’ He laughed bitterly, but his fingers were still on her hand. Somehow, he trusted her.


	10. Memento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reluctant hero emerges...

Allowing himself to be escorted into the Avengers tower was one of the hardest things he had ever done. It was only due to Nat’s gentle coaxing that he hadn’t snapped the arms of the men who’d cuffed his hands behind his back or broken the neck of the guard who’d searched his bag. He could feel the panic rising like hot water behind his eyes, breathing becoming increasingly more ragged, his extremities trembling with adrenaline. 

After their poking and prodding, satisfied he was unarmed, they had let him go. Nat had unlocked the cuffs, guiding him to the elevator, a metal monstrosity that looked far too much like Zola’s train for his liking, and punched a button for the twentieth floor. 

‘You can have Steve’s room for now, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind.’ She mentioned quietly. ‘I’ll leave you to get settled and then we’ll talk extraction.’ 

He nodded, watching as she tapped a ten digit code into a touch pad on the side of a door. 

‘There you go.’ She smiled crookedly, leaving him to step into the room, the door closing with a soft huff of air behind him. 

‘Good Morning, James.’ A voice stated conversationally and Bucky tensed, peering around the room for the source of the voice. 

‘Do not worry, James, I’m not actually here.’ The voice stated rather enthusiastically. Bucky thought that the accent made even Peggy sound like a street urchin. Peggy…he stopped, frozen in position, god that was an old memory. 

‘My name is J.A.R.V.I.S, an A.I or just a rather very intelligent system. Is James fine, or would you rather be called something else?’ 

‘Um, er…call me Bucky…please.’ 

‘As you wish.’ J.A.R.V.I.S responded perkily. ‘There is toast and orange juice in the dumbwaiter if it pleases you, Bucky, or you can request something else.’ 

‘No, no, toast is good…thank you.’ He mumbled. 

‘Ok, well I’ll leave you to settle, there is a button by the door if you need anything and a manual for room systems by the bed. Have a good day, sir.’ Have a good day? It made him think of the mother on the train, people with shit lives, he wasn’t the only one. 

He dumped his rucksack by the bed, turning in slow circles to take in his surroundings. This was insane. He was in a room on the twentieth story of a tower that surged into the sky above midtown Manhatten. The Winter Soldier would have been scanning the skyline, assessing positions for sniping, but he was just staring, taking in all the technology, being far too nosy about what Steve had accumulated. 

His memories of Steve had him as a bit of an art nut, and this room didn’t really change that opinion. Sure the room base was that same sort of thoughtless minimalism that he saw everywhere nowadays, about as personal as the carriage of a metro train but Steve had done his best to cover it up. The floor was covered in rugs, a riot of colours and textures, he had obviously really disliked the feeling of the cold metal under his feet. He’d pasted the walls with posters, pictures cut out of magazines, far flung places, grand old buildings, beautiful sunsets, the kind of stuff he’d always loved to draw. Anything but see the white wall beneath. There was a bookshelf in the far corner filled with dog eared copies of the classics and a hefty copy of Tolkien, interspersed with books with authors he didn’t recognize: JK Rowling, Ursula le Guin, Phillip Pullman. 

Bucky had never really pretended to dislike reading. He hadn’t cared that the bullies teased in him school because he preferred to have his head buried in a book; it just gave him all the more reason to start a fight. He turned a huge book by a man called Raymond E. Fiest over in his hands, was about to read the blurb when a narrow notebook slipped from inside the front cover. It was really thin, not a sketchpad, he recognized the paper was too flimsy. Tiny, narrow ruled and filled with Steve’s untidy scrawl. He knew that he ought to just put it back, pretend that he’d never seen it but it was oh so tempting to have a peek. 

Perhaps if he’d felt like more of a human being he would have put it back but he still had a sliver of the Winter Soldier stuck in his heart and that side of him was more curious than anything else. He flicked the book open to a random page. 

'Searched camera footage at Smithsonian. Found him in crowd, unlikely he will return there. Just glad to see he is alive.' 

Frowning, he flicked forward a couple of pages. 

'Sounds silly but found a copy of that old song he used to like on vinyl, added it to the box. Hopefully, when we find him it will help him remember. The Carters still had some of the old stuff Peggy had had to clean out of our apartment. Included Bucky’s dad’s medals, that baseball he caught at the 1941 match, his draft (he never told me he was drafted) and that seal ring his family had brought across from Ireland.' 

Bucky scowled, but it wasn’t out of annoyance, it was more because he didn’t like to be an inconvenience, and this whole book proved that he had been more than an inconvenience to Steve. 

Movement to his side made him leap backwards, his fingers already grappling for a weapon.

‘Don’t do that, I could have hurt you.’ He growled at Natasha. 

‘No, you couldn’t have, don’t flatter yourself.’ She replied. 

‘Ok, well, don’t do it because it…it’s stresses me out.’ He admitted, running a hand back through his hair. 

‘I won’t.’ She promised, this time her voice was earnest. He noticed her eyes drifting to the notepad in his hand and he looked suitably embarrassed. 

‘It fell out of a book.’ He stated hotly and she just smiled. 

‘Suuuure it did.’


End file.
